


Sweeting

by riventhorn



Series: Youngling [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Lactation Kink, Pregnancy, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:35:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mithian has a wet nurse for her child, but Arthur is a different matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweeting

**Author's Note:**

> I've tagged this as underage, but it would not have been considered so in the time period.

Arthur had grown taller than her by the time he turned sixteen, and his face lost the last of its boyish roundness. Mithian teased him for strutting around the practice yard in his new armor, and he blushed and went quiet until she kissed him and guided his hand to the swell of her stomach. He smiled when he felt the baby kick. 

Their child arrived on a stormy night in August, and as soon as the midwife allowed it, Arthur burst into their chambers, rushing to her side. 

“Is it—? Are you—?” He stopped, breathless. 

“A little girl,” she whispered, holding out her hand to him, her other arm wrapped around the warm bundle in her arms. 

Arthur stared down at the baby in soundless awe. 

“Take her,” Mithian said, squeezing his hand at the look of panic that crossed his face. “Hold her. You’ll be fine.”

He lifted their daughter into his arms with infinite care. The baby made a noise in her sleep, her tiny fingers curling and uncurling. Arthur smiled, enchanted.

The next morning, though, he slammed open the door, mouth twisted, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes.

Mithian sat up in the bed, alarmed and confused, still half-asleep. She cast a frantic look around the room. “The baby…?”

“With the wet nurse,” Arthur replied and dropped onto the edge of the bed, shoulders slumping. “I have been to see my father.”

Had she given birth to a son, Mithian was sure Uther would have been there last night, smug with pride and satisfaction. As it was, she would probably not see her father-in-law until she felt well enough to return to suppers in the Hall.

Arthur sniffed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “I told him that I wanted to name her Ygraine, and he forbid it. I asked him why, and he said that he could not bear to hear _her_ name every day. But she was _my_ mother. She was my mother, and he will never even talk to me of her!”

His voice broke on a sob.

Mithian held out her arms, and he crawled into them, pressing against her. She smoothed back his hair, hushing him. “It is all right, my sweeting. We will find another name for her. A beautiful name that is all her own.”

Arthur nodded, but his tears fell wet and cool against her neck. “Sometimes I think that my mother will be forgotten,” he whispered. “And then it will be as though she had never been.”

“No, that would not happen. We will tell our daughter about her. And she will tell her children, and they theirs.”

“But what will we tell them? I have no memories to turn into stories.”

She looped her arms around his shoulders, resting her cheek against the top of his head. “We will tell them that she was a merciful and just queen. We will tell them that she loved you dearly.”

He was silent for a long moment and then asked in a small voice, “How can you know that?”

Mithian hugged him tighter. “Oh, Arthur. How could she not?”

After a time, he shifted, drawing a little away and slumping back on the pillows. He scrubbed at his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. “I think we should call her Minna.”

Mithian hummed, fiddling with the ties of her shift. Her breasts ached, and she still felt tired, despite a long sleep. She wanted to call in the nurse so she could hold her daughter. “I do not care for the name. It is too like to my own.”

“What then?” Arthur demanded. “I suppose you know a better.”

“Many, sire,” she replied, hiding a smile. “Such as Belsant or Thora.”

“Thora is not so bad,” he said, still sounding sulky and out-of-sorts. Despite wanting comfort, she knew he was ashamed at having cried in front of her.

“Belsant sounds almost like music,” she said, considering. 

“Oh, call her whatever you want.” Arthur jumped up. “I’m supposed to be out practicing the quarterstaff with Leon. I don’t have time to coo over names like a girl.” 

“Belsant,” Mithian murmured when the nurse brought in the baby a few moments later. She rocked her in her arms, kissing the downy hair on her head. “I hope you’ll have better manners than your father when _you’re_ sixteen.” 

*

She could tell he felt sorry for it that evening, though, when he trailed into their chambers after supper with some dried figs for her. She was abed again, although she had felt well enough to rouse for a bath and some supper earlier. 

“Belsant was asleep when I looked in,” he said. 

Mithian swallowed a piece of the sweet, pippy fig. “You missed her crying fit this afternoon. Such howls! And then old Toly began howling along with her!”

Arthur laughed. “Poor Toly. It probably hurt his ears. I wondered why he was sleeping in the kennel instead of here with you.”

His manservant finished undressing him, and Arthur sent him off, drinking a last swallow of wine before climbing into bed. They lay looking at each other for a moment, and then Mithian leaned over and kissed him. 

He smiled and then grew serious again. “I prayed to God you would be delivered of the child safely. If you had not….” He dropped his head.

Mithian put her hand on his. “Soon I will be out hawking and hunting with you again.”

He nodded and moved closer, sliding an arm around her. She hissed as he brushed against her tender breasts.

“I’m sorry.” He drew away, blushing. “Gaius told me that I must not lie with you for many weeks. I was not going to—”

“I know.” She drew his arm back. “It is the milk that makes them tender.”

He fell silent, considering. After a bit, he began stroking his fingers back and forth across her chest, just under her collarbone. They felt cool against her skin, and she sighed, letting her eyes close.

He touched her breast then, so lightly she could barely feel it, and then a slightly harder pressure. It tingled, making her shiver. 

The wet warmth of his mouth on her nipple was so unexpected that she started up, gasping. He looked up at her, eyes wide and blue, mouth still a little open. His tongue flicked out, lapping at her. It made her groan, and she found herself cupping his head in her hands, pulling him down. 

His mouth latched on to her, one of his hands cradling her breast. He suckled. It made her whimper in her throat, over and over. Sometimes he drew back and laved her nipple with his tongue, and sometimes his teeth grazed her skin. She felt his prick, firm against her thigh as he drank her milk. 

“Oh.” He drew back, mouth wet. “Oh, I have to—” He reached down, rubbing frantically at himself with his hand, eyes screwing shut when he came. 

“Arthur.” She whispered his name, lassitude making her limbs heavy. When his breathing had slowed somewhat, and he looked as though he had his wits about him again, she shifted, offering her other breast to him. 

“There.” She petted his hair as he suckled again, his lanky, boy-limbs all tangled up with her own.


End file.
